More assistance was obtained as the day advanced; and as the efforts of the survivors permitted, they crawled to the extremities of the cavern and presented themselves to their preservers above, who stood prepared to assist them. The means of doing so, was by two men boldly approaching the very brink of the precipice, a rope being tied round them and fastened to a strong iron bar fixed in the ground; behind them were two more, the like number further back and so on. A strong rope also properly secured, passed round them, by which they might hold, and preserve themselves from falling. They then let down a rope with a noose ready made, below to the cavern, and the wind blowing hard, it was in some instances forced under the projecting rock, sufficiently for the sufferers to reach it, without creeping out. Whoever caught it, put the noose round his body, and was drawn up. The distance from the top of the rock to the cavern, was at least an hundred feet, and the rock projected about eight; ten feet formed a declivity to the edge, and the rest was perpendicular.
Many, however, in attempting to secure themselves, shared the fate of Mr. Brimer, and, unable, from weakness or perturbation, to benefit by the assistance offered from above, they were at last precipitated from the cliff, and were either dashed to pieces on the rocks below, or perished in the waves.—Among those unhappy sufferers was one who being washed off the rock, or falling into the sea, was carried out by the return of the waves beyond the breakers, within which his utmost efforts could never again bring him, but he was always further withdrawn by the sea. He swam remarkably well, and continued to struggle in sight of his companions, until his strength being exhausted, he sunk to rise no more.
It was late in the day before all the survivors gained the land; one indeed a soldier, remained in this precarious station until the morning of Saturday the 7th of January; exposed to the utmost danger and distress. When the officers, seamen and soldiers, were mustered at the house of Mr. Garland, they were found to amount to seventy-four; and these were the only persons saved out of rather more than two hundred and forty that were on board when the ship sailed through the Downs, including the passengers. It was supposed that above fifty of the remainder reached the rocks, but were then washed off or fell from the cliffs; and that fifty, or more, sunk with the captain and the ladies in the round-house, when the after-part went to pieces. An accurate account of the whole numbers in the ship could never be obtained, as the last returns dispatched from her did not arrive.
The whole who reached the summit of the rock survived, excepting two or three who were supposed to have expired while drawing up, and a black who died soon afterwards; though many were severely bruised.
Mr. Meriton and Mr. Rogers having been supplied with the necessary means of making their journey by Mr. Garland, set off for London to carry the tidings of this disaster to the India House, where they arrived at noon, on Sunday the 8th. On the way they acquainted the magistrates of the towns through which they passed, that a number of shipwrecked seamen would soon be on the road to the metropolis. This they did to avert any suspicions of their travelling for some other intent. It is truly deserving of communication, that the master of the Crown-Inn at Blandford, Dorsetshire, not only sent for all the distressed seamen to his house, where he liberally refreshed them, but presented each with half a crown on his departure.
By this unfortunate shipwreck, all the passengers perished. The ladies were peculiarly endowed with beauty and accomplishments. The captain was a man of distinguished worth; humane and generous. (He left, besides those two daughters who suffered along with him, six other children and a widow to deplore his loss.) Most of the officers also perished; one of them, Mr. Thomas Jeane, a midshipman, who was under the immediate care of Captain Pierce, after gaining the rock was swept off by the waves. Swimming well he again reached it; but unable to support the weakness which assailed him, and the beating of the storm, he yielded his hold and perished in the sea.